The Wadia Group-promoted GoAir said it had cancelled 18 flights. GoAir has cancelled 18 flights originating from over eight cities, the airline said in a statement to the PTI. GoAir operates 230 flights per day.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, DGCA, cracked the whip after an IndiGo flight, bound for Lucknow, returned to Ahmedabad within 40 minutes of it getting airborne due to a mid-air engine failure on Monday.

“While we understand that this may cause inconvenience to some of our passengers, given that we have multiple flights to the same destination, we are proactively re-accommodating all our affected passengers on other flights,” IndiGo said in a statement.

All affected passengers have been given the option to either choose another flight at no additional cost or cancel their booking and get a full refund without any cancellation charges, the statement added.

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Citing safety of aircraft operations, the DGCA Director, in the March 12 order, said that A320 Neos fitted with PW1100 engines beyond ESN 450 have been grounded with immediate effect.

Three other IndiGo A320Neo planes have been on the ground since February following similar engine problems.

The A320neo is a fairly new plane, which began commercial operations in January 2016.

More than 240 Airbus A320neos are being flown around the world by 30 operators. IndiGo has one of the largest A320neo fleets with 32 aircraft. Not all of them are fitted with that particular series of Pratt & Whitney engines. GoAir has 13 such planes.

On Monday, hundreds of passengers were stranded across the country as dozens of flights were cancelled by IndiGo and GoAir following the grounding of 11 planes.

IndiGo carries about 40 per cent of domestic flyers, while GoAir has a market share of around 10 per cent.